What Will 2019 Bring?

"The Observer" 21"x21" acrylic

If 2019 provides half the learning and change that came with 2018, it's going to be an exciting year for me.  Since last April, I spent much of my studio time teaching myself to incorporate a new form of expression in my painting that allows me to speak more clearly. I've learned that when I change the perspective, I create space for ideas and stories. While I was initially inspired by the work of artists like Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Stuart Davis and Charles Sheeler, I took their ideas of expression and made them into my own. Now I'm using my own new and growing body of work to springboard new ideas.

Color, shape and value have always been important to me in my work. Increasingly pattern is playing a more conscious role. Symbols I've developed and personalized over the years move into the compositions naturally. I've learned to think of an object or see a suggestive shape and build a story around it. I like to see how the story changes if I change colors, values or move the object in space. It's like working a puzzle, getting the pieces to fit. I'm doing a lot more thinking.

"Her Majesty's Garden" 14"x21" acrylic

Fran Larsen is correct in insisting that art is work, not fun. The work must be done with the brain engaged.  The fun part comes with the satisfaction I get when it's finished and when a piece is accepted into competition or is purchased.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year on this final day of 2018. I have one thing to say to the New Year 2019: "Bring It On." 

About Being Frightened, Scared

"Our House 2" 2018 10" x 14"acrylic

When you step away from who you are and how you are known and what you do well, which is a very secure place, you have to accept that you will probably fall flat on your face many, many times. You also have to give yourself permission to change, to grow. We do this many times, very unconsciously, while we are growing up, maturing. At age 40, we say, "hey, why not?" At age 70 that casual shrug does not come off so readily. I am changing the way I paint images and that relates to the way I talk. I don't think in words. I think in images. To speak to you, I have to envision the words first. Now I am stepping away from a body of 20+ years of work, of images that spoke what I did not have the words to say. It's very much like standing on the edge of a cliff. It's truly scary.

"Sandy's Place" 2012 10"x 14" varnished watercolor

I see much of my work has already touched on this new place I am entering. I see  works that say "hey, no one noticed me how I am! Put me in your new work." I'm getting a lot of ideas from looking back, from thinking "what can I bring into this form that I have defined in my past work?'

What is life if not an accumulation of life's work and experience? Does it really matter if I'm recognized, applauded, congratulated, acknowledged? I don't think it does. I think what matters is that I keep working until finally one piece expresses my heart and my voice. And I'm not there yet.

I remember so many places with Mad Mike, scared, pretty sure I was going to die in a bad splat off a mountain or a bad place on a river. And I haven't yet. And I don't really think I'll die from this new idea, either. Should we shrink back from what we don't know and what we are afraid of because of our age? I think not.

Stepping Out

"Only When I Listen 3"
21x14" poured watercolor

When you are good at something, it's not easy to give that up for something unfamiliar and new. Giving up something you are known for, admired for, is an enormous step. It appears I'm taking that step in my artwork. It's scary. It's unknown. And it's completely mine, to define as I wish, to make use of and to learn.  So it's also exhilarating. That is why I'm "stepping out".  I'm stepping out of the safe place I was as an artist and venturing out into the unknown.

Well, not completely unknown. Many fine artists have come before me with these ideas. There is much to learn from looking at a body of artwork by another artist. There is nothing wrong with saying "that appeals to me and I'd like to paint like that." There is also nothing wrong with saying "I've done as much as I can with this and now I'm moving on."

"My House" 11x14" wc
a first attempt

This change means that I will again spend years learning my "craft". I like to compete, to have paintings accepted into national and international shows. That likely won't be happening much with this new style. I have to let competition and recognition go. I have to learn how to express what I feel and think in my paintings in a different way. It's important to me, to the person I am and to the life I live that I find a clear and concise way to express that.

"Our House" 11x14" acrylic
2nd attempt

I'll be 70 years old this September.  I'm following the wisdom of Fran Larsen, a teaching artist who I consider one of the best, most intuitive and honest artists anywhere. If she can, over a lifetime of being a successful working artist, redefine herself 5 times, then  I've got time enough for one more iteration.

When you get "stuck", when you say "I've done all I can" and "I'm as good as I can be" then you aren't, not really. No matter how old you are or what you've done, there is always room for new growth. Just ask the plants in my garden. Be the mint. Grow some new roots.

Abstracted Thinking

"Peoples of the Earth 1" 21"x 14" collage on paper

I will have 3 paintings in a show in Bend, OR starting February 2nd. The show is open to artists in the area. The theme is "Abstract". "Define 'abstract'" I said to the gallery owner. She smiled, shrugged and said that she would like to see how people interpret the word. I've asked that question many times over the years: "What is an 'abstract' painting?"

Instructor and master painter Gerald Brommer once told me that some artists believe something is abstracted as soon as the pencil or brush touches the paper. He felt abstraction in art occurs in degrees. In one painting the viewer might recognize what the painting is about, what shapes are representing or suggesting where in another work nothing makes sense. Artists work in varying degrees between what is called "realism" and what is called "non-representational" art. 

"A Winter's Dream 1"
10" x 14" Acrylic on paper

I had the great privilege of attending a workshop with Glen Bradshaw many years ago. Mr. Bradshaw painted in the more traditional definition of "abstract". He would, for instance, take a seed and break it into it's components arranged artfully on the paper so that one could see the outside, inside, top, bottom of the seed. For a while, Donna Watson had a similar body of work regarding an Asian coin which had a shaped piece cut from the center. This is another definition of "abstract": real but not real, broken, abstracted into it's several components. 

"This Moment In Time" 14" x 21"
 poured acrylic on paper

When the gallery owner left the issue entirely up to me, I decided to submit 3 paintings that are each entirely different degrees of "abstraction" as well as different media. Many of my paintings are "abstract" in that they do not represent anything "real" and yet the paintings will portray "real" shapes. While I love to paint a completely non-representational painting, most of my paintings use recognizable subject matter in symbolic ways. These are, by anyone's definition, "abstract" in that realism has been left behind.